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On Bathing Suits

It’s that time of year again. The time when you realize that you should work on your bikini bod BEFORE the warm weather arrives. Bummer.

But seriously, who cares? I must confess that I love a two piece which means that I care, at least a little. My reasons for the two piece are two-fold – the tan and the potty break. I love the tan. I always have.

The potty break – do I even need to explain? Who wants to wrestle on a wet bathing suit? EW.

Specifically, no tankini’s. For some reason they never fit me right. They get all bunchy and gross. I’m all for the bikini. Of course, let’s be realistic – I didn’t exactly choose to work on the bikini bod during the winter so it’s not like I’m sporting a string bikini. Even if I had worked on the Bikini Bod all winter, I still wouldn’t do the string bikini. Truly. A string bikini and a toddler – you’re just asking for a wardrobe malfunction.

My two-piece is a plain as it gets. A black two piece that I totally over paid for at J.Crew because I wanted to make sure it fits right. Nothing wrong with that.

Imagine my dismay, when I’m at the pool with my child and some younger, thinner blonde is wearing the SAME bikini? Really? How is that even possible? I mean, is that fair? I didn’t pick this swimsuit up at Forever 21, I’m trying to be somewhat be appropriate. Why must I be punished?

And of course she has two kids which just makes it worse because that means I have no excuse. Am I the only one that uses this excuse? After you’ve given birth, you shouldn’t expect your body to ever look the same, right? Of course, having kids has nothing to do with choosing to eat the entire bag of Chips A-Hoy Cookies. But that’s a totally different issue.

Even better – just as I’m having an internal crazy moment, this lady, wearing the same swimsuit, who is thinner than me, turns to me and says, “that’s crazy, we’re wearing the same swimsuit!” No kidding. I hadn’t even noticed.

And of course, to make the moment complete, she was very nice and friendly. This of course means that I can’t even try to make myself feel better by hating her or assuming that she’s probably morally corrupt. I guess that means I get to learn something from this moment.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t always embrace these life lessons with joy. I want to find an excuse not to learn something. It’s not just that I care about what I look like in a bathing suit, though that’s true, but I care more how I look compared to others. I guess that’s why these life lessons exist – especially the ones that can’t be dismissed. How much easier would it have been to walk away from this had this lady been mean to her kids or rude to me? That’s easy. She may look better, but she’s not very nice which most definitely cancels out her being thin.

We are who we are. We can only strive to be the best version of ourself, whatever that is. Not the better version compared to someone else. And I guess if I want something I have to work for it.